Of Tears, Juice-Pops, and Three Thousand Healing Wounds
by Viva Raine
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILER ALERT! MAJOR SPOILERS! In the wake of all the grief and chaos, Peter just might have found himself a new little sister, whom he needed as desperately as she needed him. Well, to be completely fair... it might have been her that found him first.


_SPOILERS AHEAD! MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS - IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ENDGAME YET TURN YOURSELF AROUND AND GO MARCH YOURSELF INTO A MOVIE THEATER BECAUSE YOU NEED TO WATCH IT._

_So I'm not totally sure why I wrote this but, hey, when ideas strike they're pretty dang hard to ignore. If you want to get any sleep, anyways. So yes, Endgame is life and death all at once and I cried multiple times - from both joy and sadness... so have yourselves a heartbreaking lil Peter and Morgan story. I don't really have much else to say, except:_

_Avengers, thank you for everything. I love you three thousand, and beyond that. And in the words of Stan Lee - Excelsior._

**More Than Three Thousand**

"Peter?"

A small, shy voice called in a slight lisp, indicating that the child speaking was still very young. Glancing down at the porch swing, Peter Parker recognized the four-year-old girl that had been introduced to him as Tony and Pepper's daughter. Just that thought alone threatened to drown him in the reality of how much he'd really missed. Tony Stark was married; Tony Stark had a _kid. _It made him feel simultaneously so old, and so young. So veteran, yet so lost.

"Peter?" She asked again. How did she even know his name?

"Yeah, that's me." For the first time, he noticed the teary look in her dark brown eyes, so much like her father's; she wasn't crying, or trying not to, there were just tears in her eyes that were neither drying nor falling. Just there.

She smiled a little - man, little kids got distracted so easily - and patted the swing next to where she sat, indicating for him to sit down. "I know. Daddy talks about you a lot." He wondered whether she was too little to understand that her daddy was in the past tense now. "He says you're watching over me like a big brother, only I couldn't see you."

Peter fell onto the swing, making it rock jerkily; collapsing onto it as much as he was accepting Morgan's invitation. Tony Stark had called him his daughter's brother. Which meant that Tony Stark had called him his son. It hurt, a bit, that he'd never told him directly, but nowhere as much as it hurt that now he'd never have the chance. Now that Peter could never tell him how much he'd dreamed of identifying as Tony Stark's son, how his deepest doubt was that maybe Tony didn't love him back.

For the third time, the confused little voice asked, "Peter?" Morgan waited until she had his full attention, before shyly reaching out for his hand and taking it into her small own. "My tummy feels funny." Her lip quivering tremulously, she leaned her head against his shoulder, and Peter snaked his arm around her tiny shoulders to hold her against him.

He took a deep breath, without failing to notice the emptiness in the pit of his own stomach, the nervous, fluttering queasiness that had been burning there since Tony Stark had died, that whispered at him, _it was all for this, it was all for nothing, all the tears, all the pain, all the battle - what did it come to? This. This new pain, these new tears, this new battle. It never ends, it's always futile. _It was a harsh reminder that he was never, ever coming back.

"Yeah," he whispered raspily, finding himself choking back tears again. "My tummy feels funny too."

Mournfully - in fact, so sincerely that it was almost comical - Morgan glanced up at him tearfully. "Maybe we're just hungry. Daddy always says that if I tell him if my tummy feels weird." Peter smiled at her, patronizingly, perhaps, letting her continue. "Mommy tries'a make me eat yucky food that's 'apposed to make me strong, but I bet Daddy will let us have cheeseburgers 'cause he always telled me how strong I am already."

It was almost confusing to pick out her words, much less to determine the state of her grief and her level of understanding in the situation. Still, she spoke as if her father might come home any minute, although with the teary, forlorn demeanor of one aware that he never would, intermixed with the past tense that could either indicate her knowledge of the permanence of death or the fact that her four-year-old mind had yet to conquer the English language.

There was silence for a moment, in which Morgan buried her face against Peter's shoulder while the former soaked in the comfort while the latter tried to reign in his emotions, before Morgan heaved an over exaggerated sigh and looked up at him. "I don't think I'm hungry, though, Pete." The nickname sounded adorable on her lips, a sharp contrast with how annoying he'd found it as her father's intern. Although now, he's sure, he would give anything to hear Tony call him anything again - even Underoos. "My tummy hurts." Peter resisted the urge to repeat his earlier, _Me too_, not particularly wanting to sound any more like a broken toy than he already did, letting her go on. Peter was no expert on grief, but he'd experienced plenty of it before, and he was pretty sure it would benefit her to ramble about whatever she chose to talk about, even if he could barely understand.

"When I was sick before, like… three or five days ago, Daddy said that cuddles always make you feel all better-" Obviously, time was another concept that she hadn't fully grasped yet, since Tony had been with the Avengers for the past week. "But then he did some cuddles and my tummy still hurted, even though cuddles are my favorite so it maked me happy." It made Peter want to cry, the fact that Morgan would never be cuddled by her father again, and the fact that Tony had given such a beautiful life to his family, that Peter had wanted so, so much to be a part of.

"But then Mommy came in and gived me some medicine, so I dinna feel yucky anymore, just tired, so Daddy put on _Moana _an' I falled asleep. D'you like _Moana_, Pete?"

He didn't particularly remember ever watching it; most likely it was some kid movie that had come out when he was well into his chaotic life of juggling school and superpowers. Or in the five years he spent as dust. Vaguely, he remembered a poster he'd seen outside a movie theater while patrolling in the city, and a bunch of the kids in his classes complaining over obsessed little siblings. "Yeah, I guess so." It wasn't _exactly _ a lie; he did, in fact, guess that he most likely would enjoy it if he took the time to.

Smiling excitedly, she brushed a loose strand away from her face and animatedly began to ramble about the movie which seemed so dear to her. "It's about this, this, this girl who is like a princess, kinda, 'cept she doesn't wanna be, an' waves do dances for her, an' she sails away but she gets stuck on an island where this fat guy is being really silly and she wants to go away but he has'ta help her an' they hav'ta save all of'a islands 'cause they're all dying and getting all black and yucky." Peter marveled at the childish innocence that allowed her to forget her sorrow so easily. Even envied it a bit, perhaps. "I love, love, love _Moana,_" she proclaimed, before her face fell and she sunk back to leaning on Peter again.

"You okay?" Peter asked; he was no expert on children but there was no way she was alright. She'd practically just crumped onto him, going from an animated, breathless toddler to a quivering ball of teary eyes and sniffly defiance in two seconds.

She met his gaze, and there was a glint in her eyes that would have been anger, if she'd been older and more mature. "I don't love anything more than I love Daddy though. I love Daddy three thousand."

It was such a defiant statement, and there was so much authority in her lispy, sleepy voice that he didn't dare question it. "Three thousand, huh. It's a big number." Not big enough, for how much he'd loved Tony Stark, and how empty he felt without him. It felt like he was drowning in uncertainty, in loss - like the absence of the man who had been like his father had created a vacuum that was sucking every other emotion but bitter pain and empty numbness out of his life. It wasn't big enough to convey how broken he was now; how deeply unsatisfied he was on such a profound level of his soul that he could feel it in ever cell of his being. It all felt so pointless, so stupid, so worthless, that they'd fought all this only to end up here, right where they'd started. Lost, hurt, and empty.

But then, no number was large enough to encompass all his emotions, all his love. Infinity was too small a sum to accurately convey it. Forever was too weak a word to explain how deep this wound went.

"Peter?" He'd forgotten how much toddlers demanded all of your attention, and how effective their ways were at telling when your thoughts were drifting off. "Peter, why you crying?"

Oh great. She'd noticed. On one hand, he was only crying in front of a four-year-old girl; she wouldn't judge him or tell on him, or place on him the pressure of not being supposed to show emotion. On the other, he _was crying in front of a four-year-old girl_, not to mention one who was supposed to see him as her older brother.

And, oh, oh man, why _was _he crying?

_Tony Stark is dead. My father is dead. I'll never see him again, never tell him how much he means to me, how much I love him. I'll never be able to tease him about his daughter, to learn from his ingenuity, to carry the Stark name. Never have the chance to let my father show me what I've missed - what I've missed, oh gosh, I've missed five years. _

He'd missed five years. Had his aunt survived the snap? Had Ned? Were they all back now, as confused and lost as him? Had they been alive for five years of chaos and loneliness? Had they survived it? And his aunt - she was different now, more haunted, more broken, more scarred. So was everyone, he supposed. There wasn't really any way to escape it. And Morgan wanted to know why he was crying?

Roughly, he brushed a tear away, searching desperately for a simple enough explanation. "My tummy hurts too."

M

C

U

**Epilogue:**

After a little while - in which Morgan valiantly tried to cuddle away Peter's pain (it hadn't really worked, although he'd told her it did), she shyly suggested juice pops, and in no position to deny her anything, Peter dutifully chose two from the box and carried them back to the porch swing - one blue and one purple. It did nothing to help his stomach, but he felt a little calmer now, a little more grounded.

Pepper still hadn't shown up yet, but Peter didn't blame her. She was was busy with preparations for her husband's funeral, and undoubtedly dealing with her own devastating grief at the same time. Besides, surely someone had informed her that he was taking care of her daughter, and evidently she felt comfortable enough with that that she'd let them be. Happy wasn't there either, but Peter knew how hard Tony's death had hit him, and he wasn't judging. If it had been completely up to him, Peter would probably have opted to lock himself into his room or shower himself with work to cope with it all too.

Thankfully, Morgan had invited him to sit down with her, because he wasn't sure what state he'd be in at the moment if it hadn't been for her juice pops and cuddles, her excitement and her little stories. And her sweet, innocent voice, that would likely melt deserts if she wished it.

As if she could sense his thoughts, she leaned closer against him, until she was practically sitting in his lap, and gently placed her little hand on his stomach. "Does it still feel okay?"

"Yes," he lied, because in some cases it was better for everyone than the truth. "But I'm sad."

With far too much understanding in her chocolate brown eyes, she nestled her head against his shoulder. "Me too. Daddy needs'a come back." Her face fell, as if she'd just slapped herself with the knowledge that he never would; it had been happening to her for the past hour or so, and the angry glare was back. "I love him three thousand but I hate him three thousand 'cause he wasn't 'apposed to go 'way to leave me all by myself."

It was a feeling Peter Parker was infinitely familiar with; he knew every twist and turn of such an emotion, and the cursed knowledge made him want to hold his little sister against his heart and protect her from all of it. It only hurt more that he knew he couldn't.

In the hectic, emotional turmoil, Morgan's thumb had gradually found its way to her mouth, and the way she was sucking on it as a means of consoling herself made her seem all the more innocent and less deserving of pain; Peter felt his resolve start to crack.

His voice broke, and he sniffled harshly in an attempt to keep the tears back. "I miss him so much, Morgan."

Around her thumb - her _th'_s sounding more like _f_'s - she asked sleepily, "Three thousand?"

Peter smiled, sadly, a few tears falling despite himself. "No." He shook his head violently, against the storm he knew was coming. "So much more than that."

Endgame+Endgame+Endgame

_Please review, it'll make my day! :D_


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